Editorial: New Bern needs to keep its hands off of James City

By Sun Journal Staff

Published: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 12:36 PM.

New
Bern
is pushing a plan to extend its zoning influence into
James
City
, an unincorporated community noted for its role in providing refuge to freed and escaped slaves following the Civil War Battle of New Bern.

Like many cities,
New Bern
has long looked to use annexation, both forcible and voluntary, as a way to grow its population and tax base.

Not all of
New Bern
’s outskirts want to become part of its inskirts, however. Take Trent Woods, which incorporated in 1959 to prevent being consumed by
New Bern
.

In the early 1990s, residents of the
Neuse
Forest
community started looking into incorporation when
New Bern
started eyeing territory south of the
Trent River
.

A law passed in 1993 was designed to put south-of-Trent communities at ease. It prevents the city from forcibly annexing them, including
James
City
, but does nothing to prohibit voluntary annexation or establishing an “extra-territorial jurisdiction,” or ETJ, which is what the city is now seeking.

Forced annexation is a moot point, anyway. State law allows property owners to stop forced annexation if 60 percent of them sign a protest petition.

Residents of
James
City
have long resisted the idea of being annexed by the city of
New Bern
, which has had a spotty record of preserving, much less providing basic city services, to its own historically black neighborhoods.

New Bern is pushing a plan to extend its zoning influence into JamesCity, an unincorporated community noted for its role in providing refuge to freed and escaped slaves following the Civil War Battle of New Bern.

Like many cities, New Bern has long looked to use annexation, both forcible and voluntary, as a way to grow its population and tax base.

Not all of New Bern’s outskirts want to become part of its inskirts, however. Take Trent Woods, which incorporated in 1959 to prevent being consumed by New Bern.

In the early 1990s, residents of the NeuseForest community started looking into incorporation when New Bern started eyeing territory south of the Trent River.

A law passed in 1993 was designed to put south-of-Trent communities at ease. It prevents the city from forcibly annexing them, including JamesCity, but does nothing to prohibit voluntary annexation or establishing an “extra-territorial jurisdiction,” or ETJ, which is what the city is now seeking.

Forced annexation is a moot point, anyway. State law allows property owners to stop forced annexation if 60 percent of them sign a protest petition.

Residents of JamesCity have long resisted the idea of being annexed by the city of New Bern, which has had a spotty record of preserving, much less providing basic city services, to its own historically black neighborhoods.

But because of its location, population density and proximity to highways and CoastalCarolinaRegionalAirport, JamesCity has grown as a commercial hub, one without the benefit of zoning or a long-term vision for growth. The community is thus at the mercy of happenstance growth, N.C. Department of Transportation whims and the county’s lack of zoning laws for urbanized areas within its jurisdiction.

The result is a hare brained system of frontage roads, traffic congestion, an elevated pedestrian walkway that no one uses, historic neighborhoods bisected by a busy highway, and a street, Williams Road, that morphs into a McDonald’s parking lot.

Said New Bern Alderman Denny Bucher, “They have no requirements. You can put any building by any building. You can put a house beside a fish market or whatever you want to do. There’s no requirement on landscaping et cetera, et cetera.”

Bucher is not alone in his assessment. Others in the city see the JamesCity corridor as an embarrassing blight separating mainland New Bern and its voluntarily annexed satellites, Taberna and Carolina Colours.

So the city wants to extend its zoning expertise and influence, as well as some city infrastructure like enhanced sewer services, to help JamesCity look more like New Bern, or at least less like the JamesCity we know today.

Just as we suggested in 2009, we believe that JamesCity’s distinctive history and identity should be preserved, even if it means that JamesCity seeks incorporation on its own. Short of that, CravenCounty needs to develop mechanisms to help JamesCity age gracefully and in a way that is satisfactory to its residents, businesses and property owners.

Either way, the city of New Bern needs to keep its hands off of JamesCity.